Although ayudar (Spanish for “to help”) sounds little like the English “young”, both have the same great-grandfather.

Ayudar comes from the Latin adiutare also meaning “to help”, which in turn comes from ad- (meaning “towards”) and iuvenis, meaning “young”. To help, after all, is — at its core — what those with strength (the young) do for the elderly and those who can’t help themselves. Iuvenis is often written with the modern Latin-ish spelling of Juvenis — ahhh! Think Juvenal!

The Latin iuvenis comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *yeu-, which means “youth, strength”. From that root we get the Germanic jungas, from which we get the English young.

So youth, seemingly everywhere, is strongly tied to strength; and strength is tied to helping those who need it.

Mostrar (Spanish for “to show”) comes from the Latin root, monstrare (“to point out”), which comes from monstrum, an “omen from God; a wonder.”

From that root monstrum, we get two related English words:

• Demonstrate — A demonstration, after all, is just a showing!
• Monster — A monster was originally a messenger from God. But just a bad one!

We can see how the m-n-st-r root in the original Latin was preserved in the two English descendants but turned into m-st-r in the Spanish mostrar, losing the middle -n-.

It’s curious how the sense of awe and wonder, of a God-given message, has been lost as monstrum — the divine omen! — turned into mere demonstrations or just showings, mostrar. Sounds like the modern world, in a nutshell.

The Spanish meterse (“to get involved with”) comes from the Latin mittere (“to let go.”) They sound like they might be opposites, but they’re broadly aligned: it’s all about going somewhere, figuratively. Getting involved with something is just getting to your destination!

From this Latin root, we get a whole slew of English words, such as:

• Omit
• Submit
• Admit
• Permit

Basically, all the -mit words–even the awesome, but usually forgotten, manumit!

What all of these words have in common is going in a particular direction: the permission to go there; the acceptance to go there; the submission to see if you can go there; and even the opposite, just not going there at all!

Note that also from the same root we get the noun version of these words, in which (surprisingly) the -mit morphed into -mission. Thus: manumission, dismiss, mess, and mission.

The common Spanish word dar (“to give”) comes from the Latin for the same, dare.

From the Latin root, we get the English… mandate (“to give with your hand” – thus related to mano as well): what is a mandate if not a written order to give to someone? The best mandates are when you deliver them yourself anyway, not through intermediaries. The dare connection explains where the -d- after the hand comes from!

Another English word from the same root: tradition. That word comes from the Latin tradere, literally, “to hand over” — the tra– is the same trans- root (“over”), while the dere is the same “give.” In today’s way of walking, we’d say that tradition is what is handed down to us: it is what is given to us. Literally. And you can see the -d- in the word from dare as well clearly!

The common Spanish word aprender (“to learn”) comes from the similar Latin, apprehendere for the same.

From the same Latin root, we get a variety of related English words, most notably, apprentice — an apprentice just learns from the master, right?

A few other English words come from the same root, although less directly, including, apprehend: what is learning if not arresting all the information, knowledge, and wisdom you hear and keeping it in your mind? And apprise, which is just notifying someone — and that is really just sharing your learnings! We also get the English apprehensive: perhaps being apprehensive is just being scared of some knowledge?

The a-p-r-n-d root is clearly visible in all of these variations.

Burro is the Spanish for “donkey” and it is — shocking, shocking! — related to the English… burrito, that Mexican food we all know and love. The Spanish itself comes from burrus for the crimson/maroon color, which comes from the Greek pyros for “fire.”

But how did a donkey become a burrito?

The answer is lost to the annals of history, but the two most common theories are: they look like those packs that you roll up and hang on either side of a donkey; or they look like donkey’s ears. In either case, the imagery should make the word easy to remember!

The very common Spanish word aguantar, meaning “to put up with”, comes from old Provençal for glove, guanto.

We can see the evolution: something you put up with is something you (metaphorically) carry around with you, a burden. And what is a glove if not something you wear, something you carry around, something that helps you carry anything else?

There’s an interesting parallel to the English, bear — in this “put up with” sense, not the animal sense. Bear, from the Old English beran, originally meant something you “bring” or “carry”. So, bear follows a parallel etymology as aguantar, both originally meaning what you carry and becoming what you force yourself to put up with.

Funnily enough, the Old English beran also became bore and born in English: women do bear children, after all. I guess children are really just something you need to put up with.

The Spanish rechazar (“to reject”) doesn’t sound like anything in English. At least not obviously.

The word, however, comes from more basic Spanish word cazar (“to hunt”), which we’ve previously discussed here — related to the English “chase.”

But how did the word for “hunt” become “reject”?

Well, lets think about it: you hunt after your opponent, your enemy, the big bad bear you’re trying to kill. You hunt after that which you reject. Hunting could then be seen as the strongest form of rejection!

Andar, the common Spanish word for “to walk”, usually in the metaphorical sense of “to go,” is cousins with the English… ambulance, as well as its cousin, amble.

Both come from the Latin ambulare, meaning, “to walk.”

We can see the a-n-d of andar map to the a-m-b of ambulance and amble very clearly.